By Varla Jane Owens Wright

Thomas Hurte was baptized at All Saints Church, Bristol, Gloucestershire, England 16 January 1570, the fifth child and second son of Raphe Hurte and his wife Alice Milwarde or Millard. [Parish Register of All Saints, Bristol FHL# 1596357] His older brother, Philip, appears to have deceased before Oct 1613, when Raphe wrote his will, as Thomas is then named as his eldest son. No apprenticeship records have been located in the Bristol area. As Thomas is known to have been a grocer and in the same merchants’ guild as his father, it is most likely that he was trained by Raphe in the family business at Bristol.

The marriage of “Thomas Hurte of Bristoll and Martha Winstone, marr. The xxixth October” is recorded in the Sandhurst Parish Register in 1599.[FHL# 911289]. Martha was the third and youngest child of James Winstone and his wife Gwenllyan Herbert, whose residence was nearby Willington Court. Thomas and his newly established family appear to have remained at Martha’s home there in Sandhurst parish for several years.

Their first two children, Phillip, baptized 8 Jun 1603, and Radulph, baptized 21 Jan 1606 and buried 19 Feb 1606, were born at Willington Court and recorded in the Sandhurst Parish Register. By January of 1607/1608, they were back in Bristol, with sons Roger (2 Jan 1607/1608) and Thomas (23 Mar 1610/1611 – d. By 1615) being baptized in the church of St. John the Baptist. [FHL# 1565938] Daughter Alice was baptized 19 Feb 1612 in the old family parish of All Saints, [FHL# 1596357] as were the remaining seven children: William (23 Jul 1614) Thomas (17 Sep 1615), Hester or Ester (21 Dec 1616), Ann (8 Oct 1612), Martha (6 Jun 1625), Marye (30 Mar 1627) and Myriald (29 Mar 1630).

In 1612, Thomas is named in his brother, Roger’s will as overseer or administrator of his estate, along with a friend, William Jones, also of the Merchants’ Guild. [FHL# 92051 – Prerogative Court of Canterbury – folio 84 Fenner, 1612] On 11 Sept. 1616, Thomas Hurte, grocer, was fined 12 pence in a disagreement with another merchant. [Bristol Staple Court Records 1509-1679, FHL# 1657889] In 1627 and 1657, Thomas is named as living in the house on High Street, [Mayor’s Audit or 1627-1628, City Chamberlain’s Accounts, Bristol Record Society Pub. FHL# 942.41/B2 B4b, vol. 24; and All Saints Parish Accounts for 1657] apparently the same house occupied by his father previously, and possibly the house that his paternal grandmother, Alice Milwarde, received as part of her inheritance from her father.

Thomas’s family was recorded in the 1616 Visitation of Kent [Harlean Society Pub. XLII, pg. 31] and later in the 1634 Visitation of London [Harlean Soc. Pub. XV] as submitted by his youngest brother, William of Dover. William appears to have assumed and used the coat-of-arms granted to a Derbyshire cousin. Thomas never left record of claims to any heraldic honors.

While it is almost certain that Thomas wrote a will, as so many of his family members did, and that is would have been filed with the rest of those written by members of his guild from London, where their guild had its headquarters, no such document has been located at this time. Thomas was buried 20 Oct 1665 at All Saints Church. [FHL# 1596357] No burial record has yet been located for Martha, who may have outlived him.